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Orestes A. Brownson' The American Republic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Thomas I. Cook  and
Arnaud B. Leavelle
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Extract

While Roman Catholic commentary on specific phases of American life and politics fills many volumes, particularly in the form of periodical literature, systematic analyses of American government in terms of the philosophy of-the Church Fathers and the great scholastics are rarely encountered. Certainly, such an examination addressed to the general reading public is exceptional. Even more unusual is it to find a work from this viewpoint accepted as an influential element in our intellectual development and heritage. Such, however, has been the happy fate of Orestes A. Brownson's The American Republic, which has found its way even into text book discussions of American political ideas. Yet, while the reasons for its notice are, in historical retrospect, understandable, the resultant analysis has done the work somewhat less than justice. It has been treated almost exclusively as part of the literature which marked the triumph of Republicanism and nationalism against the Confederacy and the states' rights doctrine. Now, while Brownson, who entered his spiritual and intellectual resting place after finding Presbyterianism, Universalism, and Unitarianism successively inadequate to his needs, undoubtedly desired to justify the triumphant federal union against its opponents, his fundamental objective, in which he revealed the ardor not unusual in converts, was to show the nature of American political institutions in the light of the tradition of Roman Catholic moral and political philosophy. Indeed, while he deplored the extreme states' rights idea as manifested in Secession, he was even more concerned with the problem of excessive centralization, which he saw as the great potential danger for the future.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , January 1942 , pp. 77 - 90
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1942

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References

1 Thus the best-known Catholic work dealing with the politics of our own age is probably Ryan, John A. and Boland's, Francis J.Catholic Principles of Politics (New York, 1940)Google Scholar, the revised edition of Ryan, and Millar's, The Stale and the Church (New York, 1922Google Scholar, 1924, 1930, and 1936). But this work, while it contains much commentary on American government, is primarily devoted to the general political theory of the Church, and certainly is not a systematic survey of the American constitutional structure.

2 Brownson, Orestes A., The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny (New York, 1866)Google Scholar. Brownson wrote other books and numerous articles. Vide his Works (Brownson, H. F., ed., 20 vols., Detroit, 1882–1887)Google Scholar. Three recent studies of his life and thought are: Conroy, Paul R., Orestes A. Brownson: American Political Philosopher (St. Louis University, 1936, unpublished dissertation)Google Scholar ; Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr, Orestes A. Brownson: A Pilgrim's Progress (Boston, 1939)Google Scholar; Whalen, Doran, Granite for Cod's House (New York, 1941). The present paper confines itself to an analysis of The American Republic (hereafter cited as A. R.), since this work alone is remembered, and because Brownson himself prefaced the volume with the statement that it was the final and definitive exposition of his views. A. R., p. viiiGoogle Scholar.

3 Vide Gettell, Raymond G., History of American Political Thought, p. 398 (New York, 1928)Google Scholar; Jacobson, J. Mark, The Development of American Political Thought, p. 434 (New York, 1932)Google Scholar; Lewis, Edward R., A History of American Political Thought from the Civil War to the World War, pp. 148, 176, 190 (New York, 1937)Google Scholar; Merriam, Charles E., A History of American Political Theories, pp. 292, 295 (New York, 1920)Google Scholar.

4 Lewis, loc. cit., does comment briefly on Brownson's religion and his ideas concerning the social contract and sovereignty. Schlesinger, op. cit., stresses Brownson's earlier views, endeavors to make him primarily a radical economist, and dismisses The American Republic as largely derivative from Hurd, John C.. Vide pp. 260–261Google Scholar. Brownson did, indeed, adopt certain important constitutional interpretations from Hurd, but developed them in terms of Catholic theory. The relationship was, furthermore, reciprocal, as Hurd testifies in his The Theory of Our National Existence, p. xxiii (Boston, 1881). Conroy, op. cit., chs. 4, 9, abstracts much of the content of The American Republic, but is not concerned with locating its position in the currents of American political thoughtGoogle Scholar.

5 Schlesinger, op. cit., chs. 1, 2, 3; Dictionary of American Biography, III, 178–179 (26 vols., New York, 1929)Google Scholar; National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, VII, 197 (29 vols., New York, 1897)Google Scholar.

6 Brownson was confident that, given toleration for all religions, the United States would ultimately become a Roman Catholic nation. A. R., pp. xiv, xv, ch. 15. In this view he was, of course, accepting the militant program of the Church, but, it is interesting to note, without reference to immigration from southern Europe, which in his day had not reached considerable proportions.

7 A. R., pp. 3–7. It may be noted, however, that Brownson was subject to non-Catholic thinkers and was an ardent patriot. His notion that American federalism was the model for the true state, combined with his doctrine of theological destiny, was somewhat unorthodox, and suggests a rather ingenious solution of the problem of potentially conflicting loyalties. For later variations of the merging of federalism with national destiny, vide Mogi, Sobei, The Problems of Federalism, I, chs. 7, 8, 9 (2 vols., London, 1931)Google Scholar.

8 191 out of 439 pages.

9 A. R., pp. 1–3. The similarity of Brownson's views to those of Elisha Mulford, in this and other respects, is interesting, especially since the latter was Protestant and found his inspiration chiefly in German Idealism. Vide Mulford's, The Nation, passim, but especially the preface and ch. 1 (Boston, 1889Google Scholar). The ultimate point of contact with these two thinkers is Aristotle.

10 “Nations are only individuals on a larger scale. They have a life, an individuality, a reason, a conscience, and instincts of their own, and have the same general laws of development and growth, and, perhaps, of decay, as the individual man.” A. R., p. 1. This germinal concept was to be found in Hegel, while the theory of order in the evolution of society was presented in various forms by the French thinkers: Comte, Cousin, and Leroux. Brownson was a careful student of all of these philosophers, although he rejected their pantheism. Vide Schlesinger, , op. cit., pp. 271–270Google Scholar , 280, 124–124, 143–145.

11 For the difference in viewpoint, vide Coker, F. W., Organismic Theories of the State, pp. 13–14. 115–116 (New York, 1910Google Scholar). A recent discussion of the issue is contained in an article by Lewis, Ewart, “Organic Tendencies in Medieval Political Thought,” American Political Science Review, XXXII, 849–876 (10, 1938)Google Scholar.

12 Dickinson, John, The Statesman's Book of Jonn Salisbury, p. 64 ff. (New York, 1927)Google Scholar.

13 Vide Brownson's, The Convert, in his Works, V, 120Google Scholar ff.

14 This concept is not unlike de Toquevillc's earlier condemnation of American emphasis on the practical as against the theoretical, though Brownson stresses the moral where de Tocqueville stresses the intellectual (Democracy in America, II, ch. 10; 2vols., tr. by Reeve, H., New York, 1889)Google Scholar. Both, however, stand opposed to that pragmatism, later to become avowedly the American philosophy. In this connection it may be noted that Brownson was influenced in his logical method by Victor Cousin, who argued, contrary to Kant, that the “impersonality” of reason, applied to the facts of consciousness, was capable of leading to objective moral truth. For the contacts of Brownson, and Cousin, , vide Schlesinger, , op. cit., pp. 124–129Google Scholar. A recent critic of democracy has advanced the provocative thesis that pragmatic evaluations of the William James variety can never provide an ethical basis for positive, organic democracy because the tests of practicality or workability require continuous reproving. The alternative suggested is a realistic conception of truth, in which practicality is made dependent upon truth for its validity and truth upon practicality for its demonstration. This is essentially Brownson's method, as will be demonstrated infra, in asserting a “true” interpretation of the nature of the federal union and then proving it by the success of that union. Cf. Feibleman, James, Positive Democracy, pp. 212–224 (Chapel Hill, 1940)Google Scholar.

15 A. R., pp. 5–12. A national mission, to Brownson, is the realization of an objective ethical ideal, not, as in Fascist theory, the achievement, by a particular nation, of physical and cultural dominance over other nations.

16 Thus Brownson from the Catholic viewpoint reaches almost the same position as Francis Lieber, who was by origins a German liberal nationalist. Vide Lieber's, On Civil Liberty and Self-Covernment, passim, but especially pp. 258, 394 (3rd ed.; New York, 1875Google Scholar). Yet Lieber saw American liberty in terms of the English doctrine (pp. 20–21), while Brownson (A. R., chs. 14, 15) believed the whole ethics of American life was novel and original, and questioned whether English parliamentary government was really a good (pp. 386, 401 ff.).

17 Brownson does not here refer to Rousseau, but it is essentially the latter's dilemma that he believes is solved by American organic federalism. His doctrine is in certain respects comparable with W. Y. Elliot's co-organic concept. Vide Elliot's, The Pragmaiic Revolt in Politics, pts. IV, V (New York, 1928)Google Scholar.

18 A. R., p. 15–16.

19 Aristotle, , Politics, bk. I (Jowett, , ed., 2 vols., Oxford, 1885)Google Scholar. Aquinas, modification is contained in the De Regimine Principum, bk. I (tr. by Phelan, G. B., Toronto, 1935)Google Scholar.

20 Cf. Aquinas, , Summa Theologica, IV, ques. 96, art. 4 (Dominican trans., 20 vols., London, 1927)Google Scholar.

21 One of the reasons why Brownson thought Protestantism and the true nature of American government were incompatible was the political implication of the Protestant doctrine of the depravity of human nature. Vide Conroy, , op. cit., p. 158Google Scholar. If the American system of organized antagonisms and checks against the abuse of political power is taken to be bad, and if the doctrine of human depravity could be demonstrated to be one cause of this system, the criticism has some validity. Protestant support of impractical sumptuary laws, as for example the 18th amendment, also lends support to Brownson's argument.

22 At this point, at least, Brownson comes close to the position of Calhoun, John C., A Disquislion on Government, pp. 51–61 (New York, 1861Google Scholar). Fundamentally, of course he regards Calhoun as one of the chief misinterpreters of American government, because the latter believed that the states had genuine statehood prior to the Constitution (A. R., pp. 196, 240–242). Yet both believe in human inequality, fear majority tyranny, and desire a state genuinely integrated. But, whereas Brownson relies on the creation of a sense of national community to accomplish this, Calhoun puts his faith in institutional arrangements and fails to allow sufficiently for the potential disruption of a pluralism, sectional in nature, and functional in conception. For Brownson's contacts with Calhoun, vide Schlesinger, , op. cit., pp. 115–117, 120–123Google Scholar. In the years 1840–1842 Brownson shared Calhoun's views. What Schlesinger does not note is how much Brownson retained of that influence after he rejected the states' rights doctrine.

23 This integration of ethics and politics is basic to Catholic political theory. The Church has never relinquished its right to define the natural law which must be the ultimate norm for civil authority. Vide Ryan, and Boland, , op. cit., passim, but especially ch. 4, and pp. 324–333Google Scholar. In contrast, Puritanism in America, while originally asserting that the. union of church and state in the form of theocracy was the highest form of society, soon relinquished to the state the right of final judgment within its sphere, and made the expression of the religious ethic in temporal activities take the form of “good works” rather than governing principle.

24 Cf. the solution of Burgess, John W., especially his Reconciliation of Government with Liberty, pp. 378–383 (New York, 1915)Google Scholar.

25 Here again Brownson follows moderate medieval theory and shares the orthodox Roman Catholic position today. Vide article on “Tyrannicide” in The Catholic Encyclopedia, XV, 108–109 (15 vol., New York, 1907)Google Scholar.

26 The controversy, that is, between Locke and Filmer, or the individualistic versus the patriarchial primitive condition.

27 A. R., p. 26.

28 ProfessorSait, E. M. has, however, recently given this concept new justification. Vide his Political Institutions: A Preface, chs. 6, 7 (New York, 1938).Google Scholar

29 A. R., pp. 27–42.

30 Cf. Aquinas, , Summa Theologica, VIII, 7, obj. 3Google Scholar.

31 Somewhat curiously, Brownson condemns medieval feudalism on the ground that it was a barbaric government based on the king's ownership of territory (A. R., p. 36). He neglects entirely the element of mutual rights and obligations. He fails, too, to see that national monarchies following the Reformation could more fairly be accused of being based on kingly ownership. Vide Mumford, Lewis, Technics and Civilization, pp. 41–51 (New York, 1934)Google Scholar.

32 Montesquieu, , The Spirit of the Laws, bk. II, ch. 2; “Of the Republican Government, and the Laws in Relation to Democracy” (tr. by Nugent, T., 2 vols., London, 1906)Google Scholar.

33 This corresponds closely with the doctrine of The Federalist, no. IX (Hamilton), and no. X (Madison) (Everyman, ed., New York, 1911)Google Scholar.

34 It must be noted that utilitarianism and Jacksonian democracy, while they both represented democratic reform movements, were not related in the sense of mutual influence. Brownson, naturally, was chiefly concerned with what he considered the excesses of Jacksonian democracy. His antagonism dated from the ribald presidential campaign of 1840. Vide his The Convert, p. 199 (New York, 1889)Google Scholar.

35 This is a somewhat unusual conclusion. Those who have so regarded the suffrage have usually advocated limitation in terms of capacity, whether based on birth, wealth, or property. But vide Brownson's views on negro suffrage, infra, Pt. III.

36 A. R., pp. 43–70.

37 Cf. the essay by Louis Cardinal Billot, S. J., “The Moral Origin of Civil Authority,” in Ryan and Boland, op. cit., pp. 66–71Google Scholar.

38 Vide Mcllwain, Charles H., Political Writings of James I, pp. 68–69 (Cambridge, 1918)Google Scholar.

39 While Brownson argues more in terms of logic than scientific data, his essential attitude is similar to that of modern social anthropoligists. For a summary of recent views, vide Hankins, F. H., “Doctrine of a State of Nature,” in The History and Prospects of the Social Sciences, pp. 282–284 (Barnes, H. E., ed., New York, 1925)Google Scholar.

40 Cf. Aquinas, , Summa Theologica, VIII, 13Google Scholar, ans. 1.

41 Here Brownson strikes at one of the root problems of modern democracy, which has been created by democratic thinkers who, reacting from the Hobbesian defense of absolutism, have gone even beyond Locke, and have installed in our highly-integrated, industrial culture an atomistic and unreal individualism.

42 Brownson's condemnation of the contract theory is largely on the ground that it involves a foundationless faith. His attack on eighteenth century rationalism is not dissimilar to the criticism of Becker, Carl L. in his The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century Philosophers (New Haven, 1932)Google Scholar.

43 Cf. Vincent of Beauvais (circa 1270): “If man had not ruled man, the human race by the absence of justice would have slaughtered itself to extinction.” Quoted in Jarrett, Bede, The Social Theories of the Middle Ages, 1200–1500, p. 9 (Boston, 1926)Google Scholar.

44 Cf. Jefferson, : “No society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation.” Writings, VII, 459 (Memorial, ed., 18 vols., Washington, 1905Google Scholar). The same view is expressed by Paine, Thomas, “Constitutions, Governments, and Charters,” Writings, IV, 467–469 (Conway, M. D., ed., 4 vols., New York, 1896Google Scholar). Jefferson and Paine, of course, freely accepted the contract and its implications, while Brownson found both bad.

45 In short, he makes the regular criticism of Locke, whose doctrine was devised essentially in terms of a false assumption of free movement and free land. Vide Carritt, E. F., Morals and Politics, pp. 209–216 (Oxford, 1935)Google Scholar.

46 Here Brownson emphasizes the problem which Rousseau took up but solved only by specious evasion.

47 This is not dissimilar to Professor R. M. Maclver's doctrine of an underlying general will, which constitutes one of the most successful attempts to keep Rousseau's essential idea but avoid his fallacy of positing a “pure,” transcendental will. Vide Maclver's, The Modern State, pp. 200–201 (Oxford, 1926)Google Scholar.

48 On this point cf. Emerson, R., State and Sovereignty in Modern Germany, pp. 39 ff. (New Haven, 1928)Google Scholar; Maclver, R. M., Community, pp. 250 ff. (3d ed., New York, 1924)Google Scholar.

49 Cf. Ryan, and Boland, , op. cit., pp. 24–27Google Scholar.

50 Cf. the medieval doctrine, Jarrett, Bede, op. cit., p. 20Google Scholar.

51 Thus Brownson specifically rejects the modern doctrine of Social Darwinism as it appeared in the works of Herbert Spencer, who made evolution the basis of ethics. Vide his The Data of Ethics, passim, but especially p. 20 (New York, 1899)Google Scholar.

52 Brownson thus draws upon the tradition of Montesquieu, whose Spirit of the Laws was probably the first systematic attempt to relate the factors of particular physical and cultural backgrounds to political institutions. His position may also be compared to that of the contemporary German jurist, Rudolf Stammler, who makes the necessary conditions of community life the basis of his concept of natural law with a changing content. Vide Stammler's, The Theory of Justice, passim (tr. by Husik, I., New York, 1925)Google Scholar.

53 Once again Brownson states the traditional Catholic doctrine. Vide, especially, De Maistre, Joseph, Oeuvres Completes, I, 67–75 (14 vols., Lyons, 1884–1887)Google Scholar.

54 Cf. Ryan and Boland, op. cit., ch. VIII, “The End of the State,” for a discussion of conscience versus the state.

55 The general pattern of Brownson's integration of Catholic moral doctrine with American federalism is not dissimilar to the philosophical efforts of Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464), greatest of the 15th century conciliarists. Nicholas, who lived during the troublesome period when anarchy first seriously threatened the unity of Catholic Europe, was concerned with bridging the gulf between the one and the many, in both metaphysics and political organization. Philosophically stated, his solution was the assertion that reality has two sides, of which one is God, the invisible and ultimate reality, and the other is the world, the visible and derived reality. Thus the existence of God involves the existence of the world, and gives it finite actuality, and equally the existence of the world involves the existence of God, and gives Him finite actuality. The institutoinal embodiment of this principle, for both church and state, Nicholas declared to be representative councils based on national and local units. This is the essence of federalism. Vide Bett, Henry, Nicholas of Cusa, passim, but especially p. 103 ff. (London, 1932)Google Scholar; Cook, Thomas I., History of Political Philosophy, ch. 9 (New York, 1936). Similarly, Brownson believed that the United States had two aspects, organically and inseparably united; the nation viewed as an entity, and the nation viewed as the separate states out of which the union is createdGoogle Scholar.